


After the War is Over

by Makioka



Category: Firefly
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoe after Serenity. Time for mourning, reflection and action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the War is Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastingdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastingdreams/gifts).



Zoe doesn't resent River. It'd be hard to in fact, River's delight in flying is infectious and reminds her so much of Wash that sometimes it almost hurts to look at her. Yet despite her good feelings for River, for the smile on her face and the way she whispers so quietly that she is one of two leaves on the wind, it still sometimes hurts that when the ship swoops and soars that it's River and not Wash who guides the ship with the lightest of touches. That what's left of Wash is buried in the earth that he'd left so long ago. He'd rather have stayed with the ship she sometimes thinks. 

River seems to sense some of this, she looks at Zoe with wide eyes that are still so quietly strange that Zoe can't meet them. It's not a pleasant feeling, it feels like River can see right through her, right through her fragile skin to her still grieving heart, through her clothes to the second life that lies so close to her for so short a time. She fights the urge to form a barrier with her words, to dismiss River with short sharp sentences, but she avoids long conversations with her, not that River has long conversations with anyone but Simon, and even then it's more of a monologue.

Mal is busy he says, he's down in the hold sorting and piling and fixing, on his back next to Kaylee doing the grunt work, handing her spanners and recalibrating tools as she asks, anything that doesn't require too much talking or thinking. Zoe thinks he'd do Inara's washing if she'd let him (she wouldn't, silk requires a delicate touch.) He does mend things though, and if anyone teases him about knowing how to use a needle, he has a sharp retort ready. Zoe knows where he learnt to sew, remembers him kneeling next to her as she ripped a trouser leg up, and washed her welling wound with raw alcohol. She remembers him as fumbling in his haste he used short hasty stitches to close the cut. She still has the scar, snaking down her leg. Mal's scars are harder to see. 

He misses Shepherd Book, and he misses Wash though in a different way, and she doesn't know how to ask him to talk, doesn't know if she could hear what he'd say. She was never the empathic one,- that was Wash's job, the peacemaker, joker, the one who smoothed things over. If he was here he'd make Mal grin however unwillingly. All she can do is stand near him and let him know she's there. Once or twice at night she's lain awake and stared at the ceiling, stared until she knew every nut and bolt, every dent and rip in the battered metal. On those nights if she presses her hand to the wall, she can hear Mal, the faint thud of his boots as he walks past her room, and stops as though he wants to knock.

Sometimes in those days after Miranda, she feels like she did after the war, the same numbness. It's an old familiar feeling though, if not a friend then certainly an old acquaintance. It's not quite the same, this time they won after all, they forced the Alliance to a standstill, forced them to expose a gaping sore and let it start to heal. It doesn't feel like a war won though, it feels like the first battle. And that's something she knows Mal feels as well. The rest are more hopeful, this is the first time they've thrown themselves against the Alliance, they've never been burnt in the same way. There’s still hope in them.

Of course they're still running, the message is still out there, nothing has changed, though it seems like the world has curved just a little bit. They still need to eat, they still need jobs and everything legal is closed off to them now, they can't slip under the radar because their names and their faces are famous. They’re wanted for questioning, as though the universe itself wants to shake some answers out of them. Under this pretence of lawfulness the Alliance wants them in its hands, on the Core planets. Kaylee and Jayne front the comms now, they’re the least recognisable, least identifiable of everyone on ship. They pull a big job on one of the Mid-Planets, tipped off by one of Kaylee’s friends, hundred percent legal but not sort of thing you could contract out. For the one hour thirty three minutes the job takes, Serenity feels like home again. This is what they do best. Politics isn’t in it, just the thrill of the chase. There’s nothing like it, and the fierce excitement in Mal’s eyes tells her he feels it as well. 

They eat off that for a month, it pays for Kaylee’s coupling cables, Simon’s restocking, and even a little bit of fresh fruit. River looks at her orange wonderingly, bats it from hand to hand as though she’s never seen one before, though Simon gently reminds her that it used to be her favourite. Then she throws it to Zoe who catches it reflexively. “It’s Zoe’s favourite too,” she announces, and smiles at her. “One day it’ll be Baby’s favourite as well.” There is silence. It’s the first time anyone has mentioned it generally, and Zoe doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead she just thanks River gravely and peels the orange. The smell clings to her hands for the rest of the day, and makes her smile. 

Things get better after that, she doesn’t stop missing Wash, she never will. There’s an empty place in her that she knows will never be filled, but life goes on, and she knows wherever he is that’s exactly what he would want. He’d also want her to promise that the baby doesn’t have his name (he’d hated that name.) But that’s not a promise she’s willing to make. Time enough when the baby is born, to see if it looks like a Hoban.

Simon calls her in, runs a few checks, though babies aren’t his strong point. She’s healthy as a horse though, and determined to keep as active as she always has been. The baby will be as strong as she is, and as kind as Wash, she makes that promise silently, and just in case River is listening, she adds in that she’d like it to dance. Whether it’s like Wash did in the air, she does with a knife in her hand, or the way River did before all this, the way she still sometimes does, when the people in her head aren’t watching. 

Only Mal doesn’t change, only his pain is still the same. It’s as though when he let the Operative live, that he left some part of his vital force behind, and know he doesn’t know where to go. Feeling the new peace she has found herself, she wishes he could share it but this is something he’ll have to find himself. His feet still hesitate outside her door as though he wants to talk, but he never knocks and she never mentions it. 

In the time of war on the losing side command structures weaken. It’s each person’s choice for themselves whether to stay and fight for a losing cause, or to live to fight another day. Serenity Valley is etched on her soul, as deeply as ever it was etched on Mal’s, it was the time they stayed and chose something bigger than themselves. He’s always been her captain, she has followed him to the cannon’s mouth, but she stayed because it was right, not because he had. Now it’s time once again to do what’s right. Right for Mal, right for the ship, right for them all. And if it’s breaking rank, well Mal’s done it himself enough times. 

She puts the call through. Let’s the Alliance know they’re ready to talk, they have the proof that’s been broadcast to the Universe in their hands. They’ve seen it first-hand. She does it in front of Mal, this is not something to hide, no hole in the corner deal. When they ask for her authority she tells them loud and clear that she speaks on behalf of Captain Malcolm Reynolds. He looks at her as though he understands her no more than he does River, but she nods at him, asks him for this wordlessly and he stays back. When she puts the comm set down, he’s staring at her still, jaw stiffened, demanding an explanation.

“It’s time to stop running,” she says quietly, and she knows he knows what she means. Time to stop running from Serenity, from the war, from being on the losing side. Time to step up and fight the battles that are theirs to fight now, all of theirs from River above dancing through the sky, to Kaylee in the engineering room. They’ve mourned their dead, now is the time to honour their memory by fighting for the legacy for which they died. 

For a moment he doesn’t move, and she is stricken with fear that she was wrong, that this wasn’t what he needed. Then his jaw relaxes. “You’d better name that damn baby after me for that,” he says.

She lets herself smile. “Like I’d stick any baby with the name Malcolm.”


End file.
